Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang says he was quietly sidelined by Kamala Harris’s political operation after he publicly urged President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race, an appeal he claims Harris’s aides viewed as “disrespect.”
In excerpts from his forthcoming memoir, Hey Yang, Where’s My Thousand Bucks?, shared with The Times, Yang writes that despite shifting his support from Biden to Harris, he was effectively barred from engaging with her campaign after calling on Biden to step aside following his debate with Donald Trump.
“This was so dumb,” Yang writes, adding that he felt some relief at being excluded. “If they’d asked me to do something, I would have felt honor-bound to comply, but I don’t know how convincing I would have been.”
Yang, who left the Democratic Party in 2021 to become an independent after his 2020 primary run, frames his alleged blacklisting as part of a broader pattern in which party leaders punished dissent while closing ranks around Biden despite growing concerns about his viability.
Beyond campaign dynamics, Yang’s memoir critiques what he describes as a major blind spot in Democratic strategy. He argues that once Biden exited the race, Harris’s team failed to prioritize outreach to men without college degrees, a group he notes makes up roughly two-thirds of Americans.
Yang contrasts that with what he sees as Donald Trump’s effective communication style, which he describes as a blend of politics, professional wrestling and comedy. That approach, Yang writes, allowed Trump to reach audiences across platforms in ways Democrats have “never understood … or had any response to.”
He suggests Trump’s self-aggrandizing rhetoric mirrors the performative bravado of pro wrestling, an energy he believes resonates strongly with male voters.
The excerpts also indicate Yang is considering another presidential run in 2028, writing that “the odds of my running again are high.” Harris’s team has not publicly responded to his account.
